Death Has Been Her Life's Work, Aids Is Her Ultimate Challenge

March 19, 1988|By Iris Krasnow, United Press International

HEADWATERS, VA. — Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross nestled into a 250-acre chunk of these Shenandoah hills a few years ago as ''my own healing place,'' a paradise where pines pierce the sky and lambs are born. She named it ''Healing Waters.'' At last, after two decades of relentless work with the terminally ill, here was a chance to kick back and play farmer -- a dream since her girlhood in Switzerland. She even bought herself a red clunker of a truck to tool around the terrain.

The doctor-author, whose landmark On Death and Dying first outlined the five stages of coping with death, from denial to acceptance, has created an abundant sanctuary of life here in the backwoods. Geraniums and tomatoes sprout year-round in her greenhouse, peacocks and burros romp free.

But instead of settling into tranquil golden years, Ross, 62, is in the thick of her toughest assignment. Her new book, AIDS: The Ultimate Challenge (McMillan, $17.95), based on her work with AIDS patients that started in 1981, is a challenge with no end in sight.

Royalties from the book go to the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Center she has established on the property, a place to train staff and hold small workshops. ''When I look back at my life, I realize that all my work with dying children and grown-ups was in preparation for this AIDS work. This is my real work,'' says Ross, a 5-foot firecracker in jeans, a white sweatshirt and manure-caked hiking boots. A blue wool headband circled with pink hearts secures her short, disheveled gray hair.

Over the previous two weeks, she had led a ''Death, Dying and Transition'' workshop in Alaska and one for 50 AIDS patients in California. Her travel

schedule in the United States and overseas accounts for thousands of miles of flying, which keeps her off the farm 90 percent of the time.

A portrait of the Ross family, arm in arm and aglow with smiles, hangs on a wall in the farmhouse. She is divorced from her husband of 22 years, Brooklyn-bred Dr. Manny Ross, whom she met while a medical student at the University of Zurich, but the couple and their two grown children retain strong ties.

Ross was a professional heavyweight long before the onset of women's liberation, yet she balks at the label. ''I was not a feminist at all,'' she says. ''I needed a family. Absolutely. I could not have done this work without having an anchor. Now I can live as a single woman.''

She also can live with the scorn of some of the townspeople. Here in ultra-conservative Highland County, there are residents who are apalled that their new neighbor, the famous thanatologist, wants to start a hospice for AIDS babies on her land. Some folks, she is told, actually hold their breath when driving past ''Healing Waters'' so they won't become infected.

She has received several threats.

''That is when I applied for rezoning to adopt 20 AIDS babies to have a hospice here. My immediate neighbors are very nice, but there are people scattered around who threaten me with burning the farm down,'' she says evenly, her eyes fixed on the pink steel knitting needles.''

''And I'm definitely going to have a hunting accident. Oh, these forests are full of hunters, and it will be just an accident that they shot me instead of a deer.''

Though the community backlash riles Ross, she is accustomed to being a thorn in the side. When she started her work with dying patients at the University of Chicago in the late '60s, she was ostracized by the administration and her peers. ''It was very lonely,'' she remembers.

''They were afraid that I would make the hospital famous for dying patients, rather than excellent cancer care. That was their big, big grievance. And it did happen that people started to think of the University of Chicago as the birthplace of the death and dying movement.''

Later, Ross' work evolved into an unquestioning belief in an afterlife. This was bolstered by her documentation of 20,000 near-death cases, ''out-of- body'' experiences reported by people who were aware of shedding their physical bodies ''like a butterfly''.

All this otherworldy stuff coming from the Ross office convinced many leading scientific and medical honchos that this time she had really lost it. One major talk show that regularly features celebrity doctors dropped her like a hot potato. Skepticism still abounds.

''Those who are not ready to hear about it will be pleasantly surprised when they make the transition,'' Ross says, drawing deeply on a cigarette.

Whether or not you believe in the spiritual link that guides Kubler-Ross, there is no dispute that she has never wavered from her mission -- to bring dignity to the death process. Her 20-year-old ''Death, Dying and Transition'' workshops have helped thousands of terminally ill patients and grieving family members drink deeply of life until the end.